


A Piece of Home

by Kajune



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lucifer (Supernatural) Needs a Hug, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 11, Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 23:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12420741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kajune/pseuds/Kajune
Summary: Lucifer and Castiel go shopping. It doesn't end the way Lucifer expected.





	A Piece of Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thorkified](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorkified/gifts).



> Happy Belated Birthday, Kali

It's a pleasantly warm day in Lebanon, Kansas. The world is peaceful and the humans are thriving. As cars drive along the roads and noises fill the air, the once proud and beautiful archangel Lucifer is forced to remain seated in the passenger seat of a confining vehicle. As part of the Winchester's turn-the-Devil-into-a-good-guy program, Lucifer is required to partake in a mundane task with his "beloved" younger brother, Castiel.

The younger angel doesn't seem particularly excited about the task either, but little of the angel's emotions ever show on his vessel's face anyway. Lucifer recalls the time he pretended to be Castiel while sharing his body, and felt both pity and discomfort with how much he had to keep off of his expression in order to fit the role of the Winchesters' guardian angel.

From what Lucifer understands, Castiel does take some degree of pleasure in running errands for Sam and Dean, meaning his lack of emotion right now is not the result of angelic constipation but a strong desire to complete this task to the best of his abilities. Driving a car obviously requires a good deal of focus, but knowing his younger brother, Castiel likely considers this task as important as saving the planet.

Lucifer huffs.

If it weren't for the injuries he had sustained at the hands of Amara, Lucifer would have begun his rain of terror and cast a literal dark shadow upon each of these bustling cities. As fate would have it, Sam and Dean managed to track him down to St. Louis and capture him in his weakened state. Lucifer was eventually forced out of an elderly archbishop's body and into his former vessel Nick. It was a miracle how well the brothers worked with Crowley to achieve this feat and see the archbishop return home, aghast but alive.

It was three months after that that Lucifer found himself back to full health and allowed to see the world outside the brothers' underground home. It had been three months since the duo decided to make him take part in their rehabilitation plan. Crowley wanted to treat Lucifer like a dog as payback for humiliation he had endured at Lucifer's hands, and it's because of this that Lucifer's handlers went down from four to three.

How considerate of them.

Everything has been tedious since his capture. What little freedom he was going to use to wreck havoc on the world has been stripped from him, and his divine powers are sealed away with a bracelet, and only Sam has the key. Lucifer glares at the blue-ish thing on his right wrist, a cute accessory that can endure the most brutal of beatings once it has been locked onto something, and Lucifer knows because he tried.

Maybe that's why Castiel isn't eyeing him with suspicion anymore, because he knows humanity's most dangerous opponent is virtually human right now. In a sense, Castiel has tamed the beast and in some way he must feel proud about it, even if his face shows nothing.

The two angels finally arrive at a Gas'N Sip. Lucifer has never been to one of these places before though he always understood their purpose: to enable easy and quick access to bodily necessities of humans. He doesn't feel any admiration for the effort put into making lives easier, for no one ever questions where these products come from nor do they care if it costs lives to have food delivered to them so quickly.

Lucifer had seen the horrors behind these fancy stores during the Apocalypse. He watched the slaughter of animals on one end and the demand for meat by gluttoneous humans on another. Lucifer doesn't think he can come to accept humans after witnessing the true ways of human society, but he has little choice now and he is forced to follow Castiel into the sliding doors and stand at the threshold of a brightly-lit, fully furnished Gas N' Sip.

He feels like a lost child.

Lucifer doesn't know what to do, barely notices Castiel retrieve a red basket and gestures for him to follow. Lucifer practically glues himself to the back of Castiel as the two walk around the store. There are many things on display here, from canned fish to sliced bread and chocolate treats of various sizes. Lucifer's face scrunches up at the sight of all the excessive food. He'd be amazed if the store ever empties its shelves by the end of the day. A pure waste if it doesn't, but he feels he's the only one who cares.

Castiel whispers the name of each item he picks up and dumps into the basket. He takes a curiously long time when he finds a pack of tissues and almost asks Lucifer a question before he decides the tissues are needed. Castiel doesn't ask if Lucifer needs anything and Lucifer doesn't think he ever will, not here. At one corner of the store Castiel begins admiring a row of magazines. His expression isn't so serious or calculated and Lucifer assumes Castiel is looking at these colorful pages for himself.

Lucifer didn't think this was possible, not when four months ago Castiel was suffering from a severe case of depression and didn't feel like he belonged anywhere. Truth to be told, Lucifer has no way of knowing if the brothers ever dealt with Castiel's feelings and reminded him if he even mattered. They probably told him so, and Lucifer tries to squash the sudden rise of jealousy at that. The nicest thing anyone has ever said to him during these past three months is, "The Cage is empty, we think God took your brother out."

Which is good news since it eases away the small feeling of guilt Lucifer has been carrying since he abandoned his mentally unstable brother in the depths of Hell. He didn't really do it out of spite, but out of resignation, aware that an archangel that couldn't remember his own name could do nothing while on Earth, especially during a crisis that involved Amara.

He thinks he may have shown the comfort the news brought him on his face, because the last thing Sam did after telling him this was give him a knowing smile.

It's a look that infuriates him greatly.

Castiel is taking a rather long time reading through a book about clothing - which reminds him that Castiel really needs to get rid of that ugly trench coat - so Lucifer finds himself focusing on his surroundings. There's an old lady down the aisle checking out perfumes. She seems to sense Lucifer's eyes on her and gives him a wink.

Lucifer hides a shudder.

There's three more people including the cashier here: a man with a long dirty beard and a very thin woman with what must be her son, a child about as high as Nick's knee and the only source of noise in the store, his loud voice crying, "I want ice cream, I want ice cream!" with little regard to anyone else. His mother looks worn and desperate to get in and out of this place with as little fuss as possible. If not for the bracelet, Lucifer would've made her task very difficult.

The old lady is eyeing his rear and Lucifer decides to shuffle out of the lady's eye range and finds himself standing right in front of a row of keychains. There are many of them, but Lucifer fingers a pair of silver angel wings and is suddenly reminded of how Michael began clawing at his own feathers while in the Cage, tears streaming down his face from the pain but he couldn't stop, because without the pain nothing else felt real to him.

Not even Lucifer's pleas for him to stop were heard.

Lucifer is so lost in his memories that he doesn't notice the old lady alert Castiel to his missing "friend" and the angel immediately walks over, baffled when he sees the tears sliding down Lucifer's cheeks and he gently rubs one away, startling the older angel.

Lucifer is briefly offended by the physical contact he did not permit until he feels it himself, the sadness that he had been holding since he left the Cage and he tries to make it all go away with his sleeve. Castiel turns towards the keychain that Lucifer had knocked out of its holder and picks it up from the floor. Something clicks in Castiel's brain and Lucifer finds himself being dragged back to where the magazines are. Castiel retrieves one and marches over to the register, giving Lucifer only a second to use his right arm and notice the sad yet sympathetic look the old lady is giving him.

The other three occupants of the store don't notice them, though the kid's voice remains ever defiant against the apparent lack of interest from his mother. The man is eyeing the canned food with an almost disturbing level of fascination and Lucifer barely has time to wonder why when Castiel slams the basket onto the counter, startling the teenage cashier out of his reverie. He appeared dazed the entire time up until this point, and that's when Lucifer notices the earphones.

With Castiel's hands focused on retrieving money from his wallet, Lucifer has the time to wipe the excess tears from his eyes and dry his face completely. He turns his back on the cashier - whose name is Tim, judging by the name tag - and focuses his attention on the man, avoiding at all costs the old lady.

The boy appears to have acquired a bag of crisps but his tantrums haven't lessened. His mother is dragging him down the same aisle as the man until the boy whacks the man in the leg in a fit of rage. The mother gasps in horror and appears eager to run out of her own skin, but the man merely looks down at the now silent boy. There's a short staring match before the man kneels down and rubs the boy on the head, his expression serene.

Lucifer can hear the man say, "Hey, no need to rush. Things will get better. I promise." The man gives the boy's head an extra pat before resuming his fixation on the canned food. The boy is dumbfounded for a moment, while the mother's face is fixed with a horrified expression. She's likely embarrassed to have her son told off by another adult, but Lucifer is stuck in another memory and doesn't notice her at all. The words spoken are the exact same words Michael once told him when Lucifer, in his early years, wanted to have a younger brother.

He can't deny how ferocious his little self was in wanting to experience and see what it was like to have a brother younger than him. He was already used to an older brother, and his father's promise of a third archangel set off Lucifer's curiosity. Despite his violent tantrums, Michael gave him a serene smile and told him to be patient. Michael had promised that what he wanted would come eventually and it did, in the form of Raphael.

The early days of his life were always filled with Michael's kindness. Lucifer's longing for the warmth he used to feel fills his eyes with tears again. Castiel is panicking in front of him and tries to dry his brother's face himself. Lucifer lets him. Tim is staring at them like he doesn't know what to think of this exchange and Lucifer doesn't either. He lets the younger angel drag him back to the car.

Castiel fills the trunk with the stuff he bought and enters the driver's seat while Lucifer waits. Instead of starting the car as Lucifer expected, Castiel hands him the keychain he had been touching earlier. Lucifer is surprised by this but takes it anyway. It's a poor replica of what an archangel's wings look like but it's close enough to remind him of all the good and bad memories involving wings. He holds it close to his chest as Castiel drives the car back to the Bunker, his expression blank once again.

Lucifer doesn't really notice the outside world on their way back. He's stepping out of the car before he knows it and is following Castiel towards the front door with his two hands still holding the keychain. They're half-way down the stairs towards the main hall when Sam spots them, offering a relieved smile until he notices Lucifer. Suspicion rises in his expression and Sam pretty much ignores Castiel when the latter walks past him. Sam's entire focus is on Lucifer.

At this moment, Lucifer could easily make a mad dash for the door and escape. He'd be on foot because his wings have been restrained too but at least he wouldn't be anyone's prisoner. There's an urge to run, but Lucifer knows it's futile and he won't be getting another ride out like this if he tries. He chooses the wiser decision of making it all the way to the bottom of the staircase and stand before Sam, far enough that he doesn't need to look up at the taller being.

Sam eyes Lucifer's hands with curious wonder but before he can say anything, Lucifer shows him.

"Castiel bought it for me," Lucifer admits, his voice sounding more shy than he intended, and drier than he expected. He's still affected by the tears he shed earlier but he has no intention of revealing those moments to Sam. It's bad enough that he wept in the middle of a store filled with humans, he doesn't need to tell a Winchester something that will drive them to interrogate him for information. They did that quite a lot in the previous months, and Lucifer fought hard to avoid saying anything personal.

What he did say were mostly offensive remarks that angered Dean more than once. He was honest enough times that Sam and Dean did not deem him "overly rebellious". Dean did want to break his face in and call Crowley to sort the angel out, but Sam was against it; Castiel was too, so Dean relented.

When Sam sees the keychain his eyes light up with elation. "That looks neat," Sam says. "did he choose it for you or did you..."

Lucifer brings the keychain back towards his chest. He feels a smile forming on his face as he says, "I wanted it. It reminds me of home." When Lucifer looks back up at Sam, the hunter's face morphs into conflicted to sad to worried and glad in a span of seconds. He doesn't say anything after that, and even if he were to his voice would be drowned out by the grating voice of his older brother, who walks into the main room just then in a need to know what evil the archangel may have committed.

There was none (unfortunately) and Dean takes it as a sign of good luck before he's dragging Lucifer back to room 26 and shoving Lucifer in there. The door is locked from the outside and Lucifer feels a slight chill from suddenly being in the dark until Sam's voice reaches him through the door.

"I'll come back for you when food is ready."

The words remind Lucifer that yes, at times Dean does like to lock him in this bedroom whenever he feels the need to assert his dominance over the archangel, but he's never once stopped Sam from inviting Lucifer for a meal or two. They still don't fully trust him but it's getting better. The days will carry on slowly but Lucifer doesn't feel so upset about it anymore, he has a little piece of home with him now.

Outside, Sam marks the day's date with a yellow marker and smiles at Dean's annoyed face.

"It's still early," Dean argues.

"I'm pretty sure he's done well today," Sam argues back. Castiel agrees with Sam by nodding his head, words not leaving him while his cheeks are filled with burger. He made it himself.

Dean doesn't say anything afterwards.

 


End file.
